The Writings clearly tell us how people can become celestial. It is not a mysterious process, but a simple, straightforward one. (“Simple” doesn’t mean “easy.” See the section on temptations, below.) There are thousands of passages in the Word which tell us about this process, but I want to present a few that can give a summary, particularly about the difference between regeneration for the spiritual person and regeneration for the celestial person.
- Why Become Celestial?
- To Become Celestial, Love the Lord, Live by His Commands, Apply Truth to Life, Shun Evils as Sins
- To Become Celestial, Love Your Spouse
- To Become Celestial, Draw Truth from the Word
- To Become Celestial, You Must Go Through Temptation
- To Become Celestial, Be Humble
- To Become Celestial, Love Each Other
- To Become Celestial, Commit the Truth Immediately to Life
- People Who Commit Truths Immediately to Life Receive Perception
- All Who Become Celestial Receive Perception
- To Become Celestial, Stop Debating, Doubting and Reasoning
There are many reasons why people might want to become celestial, but there is only one reason that motivates people who actually do become celestial. Celestial angels have much greater happiness than spiritual angels. Some people might want to experience that degree of joy. Celestial angels have much greater wisdom than others, and more peace, more power, more glory. People may desire these things, but no one ever becomes celestial from a desire for power, glory and happiness or by wanting to be greater or wiser than others.
Becoming celestial requires that we put aside all these motivations. There is only one motivation that will bring a person to the celestial heaven, and it is the desire to become celestial simply because it is the Lord’s will that we do so (cf. AC 1799, AE 902.3)). To do the Lord’s will is innocence, which is at the heart of celestial goodness. My hope is that this collection of passages will help make the Lord’s will more clear to those who wish to draw closer to Him.
I thought I might make this four different sections, but since loving the Lord, living by His commands, applying truth to life and shunning evils as sins are all one thing, I have grouped these passages together.
When a person is born he comes first into the natural degree, and this grows in him, by continuity, according to his knowledges…. The spiritual degree is opened … by a spiritual love of uses, which is love towards the neighbor. This degree…grows…by spiritual truths. Yet even by such truths the third degree which is called the celestial is not opened: for this degree is opened by means of the celestial love of use, which is love to the Lord; and love to the Lord is nothing else than committing to life the precepts of the Word, the sum of which is to flee from evils because they are hellish and devilish, and to do good because it is celestial and Divine. DLW 237
I knew a man of moderate learning in the world, whom I saw after death and spoke with in heaven, and I clearly perceived that he spoke like an angel, and that the things he said would be inconceivable to the natural person; and for the reason that in the world he had applied the precepts of the Word to life and had worshipped the Lord, and was therefore raised up by the Lord into the third degree of love and wisdom. DLW 239
Love, when purified by wisdom in the understanding, becomes spiritual and celestial. … Love becomes spiritual and celestial by a life according to the truths of wisdom which the understanding teaches and requires. Love imbibes these truths by means of its understanding, and not from itself; for love cannot elevate itself unless it knows truths, and these it can learn only by means of an elevated and enlightened understanding; and then so far as it loves truths in the practice of them so far it is elevated; …There are those who understand and talk about the truths of wisdom, yet neither will nor practice them. When, therefore, love puts in practice the truths of light which it understands and speaks, it is elevated. …Yet he is not elevated by wisdom alone, but by a life according to wisdom, for a man’s life is his love. Consequently, so far as his life is according to wisdom, so far he loves wisdom; and his life is so far according to wisdom as he purifies himself from uncleannesses, which are sins; and so far as he does this does he loves wisdom. DLW 422
Those who are in celestial love perform uses from love of good… for it is of wisdom to do good from good…. They have wisdom inscribed on their life, and not on the memory… [and therefore] they perceive instantly whether whatever they hear is true or not…. These are those who are in the third heaven, and who are the wisest of all. Such have they become who in the world have applied the Divine truths which they have heard immediately to the life by turning away from evils as infernal, and worshipping the Lord alone. DLW 427
The Lord alone opens the spiritual degree and the celestial degree, and only in those who are wise from Him; and those are wise from the Lord who cast out from themselves the devil, that is, evil.
DP 34
Every one from creation, and hence from birth, has three discrete degrees…. He comes into the second degree, called the spiritual, if he lives according to the spiritual laws of order, which are principles of Divine Truth; and he can also come into the third degree, called the celestial, if he lives according to the celestial laws of order, which are principles of Divine Good. DP 32
Many among those who are of Babylon can be spiritual,…but they cannot become celestial, because they do not approach the Lord, but approach living and dead people, and worship them. AR 774
There are two things with man which prevent his becoming celestial, one of which belongs to his intellectual, and the other to his will part: that which belongs to the intellectual part consists of the empty memory-knowledges he learns in childhood and youth; and that which belongs to the will part consists of pleasures from the desires which he favors. These are the hindrances that prevent his being able to attain to celestial things. These are first to be dispersed; and when they have been dispersed, he can then for the first time be admitted into the light of celestial things, and at last into celestial light. AC 1542
So far as a person indulges the pleasures that originate from desires, he is drawn away from the celestial things that are of love and charity; because in those pleasures there is love from self and from the world, with which celestial love cannot agree. There are, however, pleasures that agree perfectly with celestial things, and that likewise appear similar in external form…. But the pleasures that originate from desires are to be restrained and wiped out, because they block the way to celestial things. AC 1547
So long as a person is in this world he is in the Natural, and is at the same time in the Spiritual in so far as he is in genuine truths, and in the Celestial in so far as he is in a life according to them. SS 68
A person must do these commandments from religion, because they are commanded by the Lord; and if he does them from any other consideration whatever,…he remains natural. …I have had proof that this is true from angels of the third or inmost heaven, who are in the greatest wisdom and happiness. When asked how they had become such angels, they said that it was because during their life in the world they had regarded filthy thoughts as heinous, and these had been to them adulteries; and had regarded in like manner frauds and unlawful gains, which had been to them thefts; …and so with other things. When asked again whether they had done good works, they said that they loved chastity, in which they were because they had regarded adulteries as heinous; that they loved sincerity and justice, in which they were because they had regarded frauds and unlawful gains as heinous; …and so on; …and that it was on this account that they had been raised up by the Lord after death into the third heaven. AE 902.3,4
With those who live in conjugial love, the interiors of their minds are open through heaven even to the Lord; for this love flows in from the Lord through a person’s inmost. …From this they are receptive of celestial loves above others, and are in mutual love more than others. AC 2737
A person ascends into his higher region, which is called spiritual, by a life according to the truths of religion; and into the highest, by the marriage of love and wisdom…. In the highest region called celestial, is conjugial chastity residing in its own love. A person is elevated into this region by the love of uses, and since the most excellent uses are from marriages, by love truly conjugial. CL 305
By conjugial love the interiors of the mind are opened, because the influx into it is from the Lord through the third heaven; thence a person becomes receptive of all celestial loves and likewise of truths. De Conj. 40
The love of marriage corresponds to the love of the highest heaven, which is love to the Lord from the Lord…. The love of marriage is so holy and celestial because it has its beginning in a person’s inmosts from the Lord Himself, and it descends according to order to the ultimates of the body, and thus fills the whole person with celestial love and brings him into a form of the Divine love. AE 985
The delight of the love of marriage, since it is from the love of the conjunction of good and truth and from the love of doing good, is a celestial delight; and it comes down from the inmost or third heaven, where love to the Lord from the Lord reigns. AE 990
The human mind is distinguished into three regions…. With those who are in love truly conjugial, these three regions stand open, and influx follows in order according to the openings. CL 335
There are three regions of the human mind…. In the highest region love truly conjugial dwells. CL 270
With us in the heavens, especially in the third heaven, our celestial delights are chiefly from conjugial love. CL 42
Conjugial love expands the inmost parts of the mind, and at the same time the inmost parts of the body, as the delicious current of its fountain flows through them and opens them up. CL 68, 293
The human mind is distinguished into regions…. The human mind elevated as that mind is opened—with men by wisdom and with women by love truly conjugial. CL 188
In a marriage of love truly conjugial, each becomes an ever more interior person; for that love opens the interiors of their minds. CL 200, 211
Truly conjugial love ascends from its first warmth progressively upward towards people’s souls in an effort to form conjunctions there, and this by continually more interior openings of their minds. There is, moreover, no love which strives for these openings more intensely, or which opens the interior recesses of minds more forcefully and adeptly, than conjugial love; for it is the soul in each which impels it. CL 302
The celestial degree is opened by…committing to life the precepts of the Word. DLW 237
In order that celestial good, which is inmost good, may be born with a person, which is effected by the Lord through regeneration, truths must be acquired from the Word, or from the doctrine of the church which is from the Word. These truths obtain their first seat in the memory of the natural or external person; from this they are called forth by the Lord into the internal person, which is done when the person lives according to them; and the more the person is affected with them, or loves them, the higher, or the more interiorly, they are raised by the Lord, and there become celestial good. Celestial good is the good of the love of doing truths from the Word for the sake of good, thus for the Lord’s sake; for the Lord is the source of good, thus is good; and this is the generation of this good. From this it is evident that this good comes forth by means of truths from the Word, first in the most external or sensuous person, next by their elevation into the internal person, and finally into the very inmost person, where they become celestial good. And as this good comes forth in this way by means of truths in their order, so it afterward subsists in a like order by means of the same truths.
AC 10252.2–3
Any one can see, if he pays attention, that in itself the memory-knowledge of knowledges is nothing but a means whereby a person may become rational, and thence spiritual, and at last celestial. AC 1472
When a person is being instructed in his earliest childhood, …it appears … that he advances from memory-knowledges to rational things, from these to spiritual things, and so at last to celestial things. The reason it so appears is that a way must thus be opened to celestial things, which are the inmost. All instruction is simply an opening of the way. AC 1495
Regarded in itself, the truth learned from childhood is nothing but a vessel adapted to the reception of what is celestial. Truth has no life from itself, but only from the celestial that flows in. The celestial is love and charity; all truth is from this. AC 1496
The people of the spiritual church are tempted as to the truths of faith, wherefore with them the combat is by truths; but the people of the celestial church are tempted as to the goods of love, wherefore with them the combat is by goods. HD 198
Temptations exist with those who have conscience, that is, with those who are in spiritual love; but more grievous ones with those who have perception, that is, with those who are in celestial love.
HD 198
Evils or evil spirits rebel in proportion as the person who desires to be in good and truth confirms in himself any evils and falsities; …hence come infestation and combat…. With those who have conscience there arises therefrom a dull pain; but with those who have perception, a sharp one, and the more interior the perception is, the sharper is the pain. AC 1668
With one who is to be regenerated there is something interior which combats with that which is exterior…. In this interior person there is conscience with the spiritual person, and perception with the celestial. AC 1702
When the temptation is celestial, then the fluctuation is between good and evil…. Celestial temptations can exist only with those who are in love to the Lord…. Temptation is anguish and anxiety occasioned by whatever opposes one’s loves. Thus with those who are in love to the Lord, whatever assails this love produces an inmost torture, which is celestial temptation. AC 847
Moreover celestial people are such that before they put off that state they are in a natural so strong as to truth that they are able to battle with the hells; for it is truth that fights, and never good, as the hells cannot make even a distant approach to good. AC 3301
His spiritual life is delighted and sustained by such things as belong to the knowledges of faith, and to works of charity,…and his natural life is delighted and sustained by those which belong to the body and the senses; whence a combat arises, until love gains the dominion, and he becomes a celestial person. AC 12
Another reason why the celestial person is the “Sabbath,” or “rest,” is that combat ceases when he becomes celestial. The evil spirits retire, and good ones approach, as well as celestial angels; and when these are present, evil spirits cannot possibly remain, but flee far away. AC 87; cf. 91, 95
The spiritual do not have love to the Lord, as the celestial do, and consequently they do not have the humiliation which is essential in all worship. AC 2715.2
Real confession of the heart, being from celestial love, is in the genuine sense confession. The one who is in this confession acknowledges that all good is from the Lord, and that all evil is from himself; and when he is in this acknowledgment, he is in a state of humiliation, for he then acknowledges that the Lord is everything in him, and that he himself is relatively nothing; and when confession is made from this state, it is made from celestial love. AC 3880.7
“Bending” denotes the humiliation of truth, that is, of those who are in truth, thus of the spiritual; and “bowing down” denotes the humiliation of good, that is, of those who are in good, thus of the celestial. In this case also “bending” is outward humiliation, and “bowing down” inward; for those who are in good are more interior people than those who are in truth. AC 5682
Charity towards the neighbor is the performance of uses, and living a moral life from a heavenly origin. …This, therefore, is spiritual good; while celestial good is looking to the Lord and acknowledging that every good and truth is from Him, and that from the person, or from what is the person’s own, there is nothing but evil. AE 324
For innocence is to acknowledge in the heart that of ourselves we desire nothing but evil, and perceive nothing but falsity, and also that all the good which is of love, and all the truth which is of faith, are from the Lord alone. None can at heart acknowledge these things except those who are conjoined with the Lord by love. Such are those who are in the inmost heaven, which from this is called the “heaven of innocence.” AC 9262
But mutual love, which alone is celestial, consists in a person’s not only saying of himself, but acknowledging and believing, that he is utterly unworthy, and that he is something vile and filthy…. So far as he does this, he receives celestial love from the Lord, that is, mutual love, which consists in the desire to serve all. AC 1594
There is nothing of pride in their discourse. DLW 427
The love of doing uses is with those who are in the Lord’s celestial kingdom, and is there called mutual love. This love descends most nearly from love to the Lord, because the Lord’s love is to do uses to the community, and to each society in the community, and He does these by means of people who are in love to Him. AR 353
Celestial good is the good of love to the Lord, and celestial truth is the good of mutual love. AC 9544
The difference between these two kingdoms is that the internal good of the celestial kingdom is the good of love to the Lord, and its external is the good of mutual love; those who are of this kingdom are in the good of love, but not in the truth which is called the truth of faith, for this is in the good of this kingdom, so much that it cannot be seen separately from good, and therefore those who belong to this kingdom cannot even mention faith (n. 202, 203, 4448), because with them instead of the truth of faith there is the good of mutual love. But as regards the spiritual kingdom, its internal is the good of charity toward the neighbor, while its external is the truth of faith…. The external of the celestial kingdom is the good of mutual love, and the internal of the spiritual kingdom is the good of charity toward the neighbor; but the good of mutual love is more interior than the good of charity toward the neighbor, because the former is from the rational, but the latter is from the natural.
AC 6435; cf. 9680, 9683, 9741, 9780, 9873, 9912, 9993, 10150
The redemption or reformation and salvation of the people of the spiritual church is effected through truth; but that of the people of the celestial church through good. AC 2954
The person of the celestial church was regenerated as to the will part, by being imbued from infancy with the good of charity; and when he had attained to a perception of this, he was led into the perception of love to the Lord, whereby all the truths of faith appeared to him in the intellect as in a mirror. AC 5113.2
The internal in the inmost heaven is the good of love to the Lord, and the external there is the good of mutual love, which belongs to the love of good for the sake of good. This good is what is meant by the truth of celestial love. AC 9933
These three degrees of life in a person are opened successively;…the second degree by a life in accordance with the truths of faith from the Word, and in accordance with the consequent goods of charity toward the neighbor; and the third degree by a life in accordance with the good of mutual love and the good of love to the Lord. AC 9594
He who is not acquainted with the arcana of the church and of heaven may believe that all the good of the church is from truths, because good cannot he implanted except by means of truths; nay, that a person cannot know what good is except by means of truths. Yet the good that comes by means of truths is the good of the spiritual church, and regarded in itself is truth, which is called good when it becomes of the will and act, and consequently of the life. But the good which does not come forth by means of truths, but by means of the goods of mutual love, is the good of the celestial church, and regarded in itself is not truth, but good, because it is the good of love to the Lord. AC 9404.2
The celestial person is one who is in good from the will, and from this in truth; … In a few words something must be said of the truth of good which is of the celestial person. This truth is indeed called truth, but it is good. With the celestial person there is the good of love to the Lord and the good of love toward the neighbor. The good of love to the Lord is his internal, and the good of love toward the neighbor is his external. Therefore as regards the people who are of the celestial church, those are in the internal of this church who are in love to the Lord, and those are in its external who are in love toward the neighbor .The good of this love, namely, of love toward the neighbor with the celestial person, is what is here called the “truth of good,” [or] celestial truth. AC 6295
In each kingdom good is implanted by means of truth, but with those who are in the spiritual kingdom good is implanted by means of truth in the intellectual part, whereas with those who are in the celestial kingdom good is implanted by means of truth in the will part. … With those who are in the spiritual kingdom truth is implanted in the external or natural person, and there first becomes memory-knowledge…But with those who are in the celestial kingdom truth does not become memory-knowledge, nor faith, nor conscience; but it becomes reception in the good of love; and in so far as the life is according to it, it becomes perception, which grows and is perfected with them in accordance with the love, and this day by day while they are unaware of it, almost as with infants. This is done while they are unaware of it because the truth does not stay as knowledge in the memory, neither does it tarry as something intellectual in the thought, but it passes straightway into the will, and becomes of the life; and therefore these do not see truth, but perceive it; and the amount and quality of their perception of it is in accordance with that of the good of love from the Lord to the Lord in which they are…. This shows what is the nature and amount of the difference between those who are in the celestial kingdom of the Lord and those who are in His spiritual kingdom. The cause of the difference is that by their life the former turn the truths of the church immediately into goods, but the latter remain in truths, and set faith before life. AC 10124
Those that have applied the doctrinals of the church which are from the Word immediately to life, are in the inmost heaven, and surpass all others in their delights of wisdom. HH 489
Those who are in the inmost or third heaven are in innocence of the third or inmost degree,…for more than all others they love to be led by the Lord as little children by their father; and for the same reason the Divine truth that they hear immediately from the Lord or mediately through the Word and preaching they take directly into their will and do it, thus committing it to life. And this is why their wisdom is so superior to that of the angels of the lower heavens. HH 280
In heaven those are called wise who are in good, and those are in good that apply Divine truths at once to the life; for as soon as Divine truth comes to be of the life it becomes good, …therefore such are called wise because wisdom is of the life. But those that do not commit Divine truths at once to the life, but first to the memory, from which they afterwards draw them and apply them to the life, are called the “intelligent.” HH 348
Perception is given with those in heaven who, while they lived in the world, brought the doctrinals of the church which are from the Word immediately into the life, and who did not first commit them to memory; thus the interiors of their minds were formed to the reception of the Divine influx. HD 140
They were of the Lord’s celestial kingdom, where all know from an interior perception the truths which with us are called the truths of faith…. There are few on our earth who have interior perception, because in their youth they learn truths and do not do them….. Those who are regenerated by the Lord, and commit truths immediately to life, come into an interior perception concerning them. EU 169
Every one receives perception from the Lord when he comes to celestial things. Those who have become celestial people, such as those of the Most Ancient Church, have all received perception.
AC 1442
The angels, especially the celestial, have revelation from perception, as also had the people of the Most Ancient Church, and some too of the Ancient Church, but scarcely any one at this day. AC 5121
As the things that are of the external person are conjoined with the celestial things of the internal person, so perception increases and becomes more internal. Conjunction with celestial things gives perception; for in the celestial things that are of love to Jehovah is the very life of the internal person; or what is the same, in the celestial things that are of love, that is, in celestial love, Jehovah is present, which presence is not perceived in the external person until conjunction has been effected, all perception being from conjunction. AC 1616.2
From this also it is plain in what obscurity, or in what thick darkness, the spiritual church is. And because they are in this thick darkness they divide the church into as many churches as there are diverse doctrines concerning the truths of faith; which they would not do if they were in light. For he who is in light never doubts, still less denies, that love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor are essentials of the church, and that upon them are based all the truths of the Word, consequently all the truths of faith. AC 8928
Because the celestial perceive truth from good, they never confirm it by reasons; but when truths are in question, they merely say, Yea, yea, or Nay, nay. These are those who are meant by the Lord in Matthew:- “Let your discourse be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: that which is beyond these is from evil” (v.37); for to reason about truths as to whether such is the case, is not from good, because then the truth is not perceived, but is only believed from authority, and thence from confirmation by one’s self.
AC 10124
The celestial are in the truth itself respecting which the spiritual dispute whether it be so…. But as the spiritual dispute whether it be so, they cannot, so long as they do this, come to the first boundary of the light of the celestial, still less look at anything from their light. AC 2715
The third or inmost degree is opened with those who apply Divine truths at once to life, and do not reason about them from the memory, and thus bring them into doubt. AE 739
The celestial angels, who are in the inmost or third heaven, being in the highest light, do not even confirm truths by reasons, still less do they debate or reason about them, but merely say Yes, or No…. Truth Divine is not to be confirmed from man, but from the Lord in man. On this account it is lastly said, “let your speech be, Yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these is from evil.” For those who perceive and see truth from the Lord, do not otherwise confirm it; as is the case with the angels of the inmost or third heaven, who are called celestial angels, and are spoken of above. The reason why speech more than this is from evil, is that what is more than this is not from the Lord, but from man’s own, thus from evil, for man’s own is nothing but evil. AC 9166.2,8
So long as people remain in debate as to whether a thing is, and whether it is so, they can never advance into anything of wisdom; for in the thing itself concerning which they debate there are innumerable things which they can never see so long as they do not acknowledge that thing, because in this case they are all the time ignorant of everything that belongs to it. AC 3428
Those who are in the affection of truth, think, search out, and discuss whether a thing be true, or whether it be so; and when they are confirmed that it is true, or that it is so, they think, search out, and discuss what it is, and thus stick fast at the first threshold; nor can they be admitted into wisdom until they are free from doubt. But those who are in the affection of good, from the good itself in which they are, know and perceive that the thing is so; and thus are not at the first threshold, but are in the inner chamber, being admitted into wisdom. Take as an example that it is celestial to think and act from the affection of good, or from good: Those who are in the affection of truth discuss whether this is so, whether it is possible, and what it is; and so long as they are occupied with doubts about it they cannot be admitted; but those who are in the affection of good do not discuss, nor busy themselves with doubts, but affirm that it is so, and are therefore admitted; for those who are in the affection of good, that is, who are celestial, begin where those who are in the affection of truth, that is, who are spiritual, stop; so that the furthest boundary of the latter is the first of the former. AC 2718.2,3